Friends in Urban Places

 It ain’t easy to make friends when you're 28 inches tall: you can't talk and you are completely dependent on other human beings to do just about everything. On the flip side, an 11-month-old's days consist of sleeping twelve hours a night, discovering new culinary creations, napping and of course, playing.

It’s funny how babies' personalities develop. You deliver a child and you have no idea what their disposition is going to be. My husband and I are calm, shy, quiet people and our assumption was that our daughter would have similar traits. Boy, were we wrong! The minute she came out, she wanted to announce…”World, I am here and I am ready to tackle you!” She is outgoing, charismatic, intense, loud and loves to be around people.

In her ideal world, she would spend the entire day in a huge open space with lots of people doting on her and boxes of various sizes scattered around so she could play with them! Yes, it is true: babies prefer to play with the box rather than the $100 toy that lies inside. But, the reality is that she spends most of her days in our little urban apartment with fewer boxes than she would like and either me, my mom or the nanny.

Because she is so gregarious, it’s important to us that she spends time with other children and makes friends. Because my husband and I work full-time, meeting for weekday playgroups or mommy/daddy clubs just isn’t an option for us. So, we do what a lot of urban working parents do and rely on other families in our apartment building as well as local parks.

Social butterflies love to be outside and mine is no exception. We have a few parks within blocks of our building and, so long as the sun is out, you will undoubtedly see my butterfly fluttering about one of them. She’s on the verge of walking but generally prefers to crawl when approaching a new friend.

She typically goes after boys and will eye some toy or apparatus that has a low bar on it so she can prop herself up and at least stand up straight when making her introductions. Glances are exchanged as are a slew of incomprehensible baby words although the kids seem to understand each other just fine. And, before you know it, we have a new friend.

What happens when it’s raining or snowing? We head to our lobby and find all the other little ones that have cabin fever! I have to say that I really enjoy this aspect of apartment living. All the neighbors with kids come together and it’s a great way for not only the parents and caregivers to get to know each other, but also the children to form more permanent bonds. At any given hour of the day, you will undoubtedly find a child and parent wandering the halls, saying hello to residents and making new friends.

And new friends aren’t always pint sized toddlers, some of my social butterfly's biggest fans are the senior residents of our building. I’ve learned they have just as much fun with her as she has with them.